dolores666's photos with the keyword: FamilyLife

CucaFera and Baby. Catalan Stuff I. This be the reworking of a cover of a very short-lived Catalan satirical magazine published in Barcelona between April and August 1917. I’m pretty sure the contents wouldn’t have been my cup of Rosie even then but I do love some of the graphics of that period. My CucaFera (Vermis Indomitus Cultus) and her baby, whose name is Laia, have come across a wandering self-exiled Yithian teenager who left its wonder-city back in primeval down-under because of a strong disagreement with the Chief Librarian. See it here, blubbering on lavishly about all the wrongs done to it and how it misses the humid swamps and the luxuriant forests of giant ferns and, worse of all, its loss of library privileges. The scholarly creeper, always sympathetic to such melancholy cases and a sucker for a sob story has offered the defecting youth a loan of her own collection of literary masterpieces, like the complete works of Emma Goldman and a comprehensive edition of Garcia Lorca's poetry. Such a kind creature, she is. Warning: More varieties of Catalan Worms/Dragons/Snakes/Whatnots coming soon.

Generations. aka Fractious Fractals. Emilia and Amelia, two highly respectable, thoroughly decorous twin snakes indigenous to the Midway Drift, have given synchronic birth each to a mess of hatchlings. The babies appear to have fractal tendencies. It’s easy to predict that they’ll grow up to be unruly bunches and that they will evolve into troublesome, non-compliant creatures. However, to make up for these nonconformist inclinations, they are scandalously healthy and marvellously merry. Moreover, they never-ever-ever, not in a million years, will they vote Tory, send troops to Afghanistan* or accuse Russia of about everything bad that happens in the world, not even this rotten, wet and miserable summer we’re having. Us chickens celebrate their arrival, wish them a long, prosperous and fun-ridden life and, to some extent, feel for the young mothers, although they knew what they were getting into when they chose to go down the path of procreation. Fortuity be thy name and all that… * off-guardian.org/2021/07/09/no-joe-biden-is-not-ending-the-war-in-afghanistan

Chthonians. (Aka Cthonians). The invaluable Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopaedia* has this to say about the Chthonians: 1) that they are a race of highly intelligent, very long-lived subterranean tunnel-diggers, 2) that they look like short-tentacled squids with no eyes, 3) that they are led by a seriously outsized member of their species named Shudde-M’ell, 4) that they are outstanding telepaths and 5) that they are very protective of their privacy and their young. On the whole the Chthonians are inclined to leave others inhabitants of this our beautiful planet well alone as long as they, said additional dwellers, leave them alone in turn and don’t try and steal their treasured eggs. (Cave egg collectors. You have just been given wise counsel.) They are practically invulnerable to almost anything you can throw at them bar high grade radiation and immersion in water. Also, a thingummybob called the Tikkoun Elixir, the Ankh, the Vach-Viraj chant -whatever that is when it’s at home- and the Elder Sign can disagree with them to some extent. They are not technologically inclined, overall, although it is rumoured that some queer artefacts found in certain deepest parts of the ocean floor might have belonged to them. Once every twenty-three years, the Great Old One Shudde-M’ell comes to the ruined city where the Chthonians once were imprisoned for a family reunion and to catch up with the latest gossip. This is always a grand, merry occasion, especially for the latest batches of offspring, who are, like children all over the cosmos, prone to mischief and partial to making very silly jokes and god-awful puns. *The Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopaedia, Daniel Harms. Elder Sign Press 2008

Been a tad fragile lately, so I recruited the Bug Patrol to come and lend a claw or two in the fight against The Blues. Since these chappies never travel alone, they brought their friends and relatives and all in all we hand a grand, righteous groovy time of it. Please note the presence of the Celestial Sardine and Manu, the Bird of Reason, both absent from my neck of the wood for quite a while because they are both in great demand elsewhere; the Sardine for her outstanding skills as an all-’round entertainer and Manu simply much needed, end of. If you ever get overwhelmed by the uncommon amount of politico-mediatic bullshit floating about right now, drop me a line and I’ll send the merry brigands your way. Free of charge, por la cara. There. Have a maaarvelous week. And here’s today’s lesson of my very own Spanish for Beginners: twitter.com/DaniBordas/status/1011166809343643648/photo/1 Translation: With this picture you can explain to a child what the Right is all about: you climb to the top standing on everybody else’s things and if you see that you’re going to topple and bust your ass you snatch the flag and use it as a parachute. And a wee “obituary” to cheer you up. www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/27/the-horrors-of-john-mccain-war-hero-or-war-criminal-2

Young Oolaloo is introducing her latest offspring to its sisters (the Winged Worm is adopted). The kids are delighted but somewhat puzzled as to the nature of the new arrival, as is Oolaloo herself. She conjectures that the father might, just might, mind you, be that good-looking merman she met at a very nice party at the GorgoMormo’s; or perhaps that brilliant and forensically clever Deep One with whom she spend a grand weekend at the Mother Hydra B&B last time she visited her friends in Y'ha-nthlei. She’s not bothered, really. Determined to emulate the Shub-Niggurath in the family unplanning department and equally firm on the eugenics aspect of her endeavour, she chooses as different fathers for her children as she can, if always within the limits of her rather fussy and elitist taste in men, naturally. But as long as they are healthy, of good stock, bright and good looking and not totally psychotic, as far as she’s concerned they’ll do

Happy Scene. Here's a sweet, peaceful family scene, a small spoonful of sugar to coat the throat and shield it from the bitterness and dismay of this incoming Catalan Black Thursday. Remember folks, no matter what further horrors emerge from it, the Shoggoths and their friends still will have picnics, ice cream and the Shub-Niggurath to wind up. The Shoggoths know what is what, what!

Meet the Mi-No, very distant relatives of our good friends the Mi-Go. More fungoid than crustacean, they wear their chitinous skeletons on the inside, like us meat folks (only our skeletons are not chitinous, more’s the pity). They live in a galaxy so distant from ours that even the Mi-Go have difficulties reaching it, a fact they regret deeply, for they dearly love their several times removed cousins. This here lot have just dropped in for a long visit, having just invented a truly clever transport system that will allow them (and the Mi-Go, of course), to consort on regular basis. The Mi-No have heard of our riotous groovy parties and poetry reading soirées and they are very keen to attend, being as they are, ever so fond of riotousness and poetry and other such lofty matters. The conveyance device operates, Mrs Mi-No tells me, on a system of randomly integrated singularities with a dash of exclusion zones. (It’s all Greek to me but I’m prepared to take her word for it, lest my head explodes with excessive information.) A clever, delightful people, these Mi-No. We all are utterly and hysterically chuffed, we are. The more the merrier is our motto.

This is for Dr. Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger, aka Cordwainer Smith -long time no read but obviously not forgotten. And for my compadre Patricio, also a great believer in the things that dwell "at the bottom of one's head".

The young Pygmy Dino who showed such great talent for storytelling in the recent Serpentine shindig, has encountered an equally fresh-faced Cagnolito Not-Quite-of Tindalos. An anecdote or two later the wretched hound is totally gobsmacked, utterly dazed and near blowing a fuse. There’s the mesmerizing power of a good yarn for you, chaps. Out there in the distance, Doña Alegría looks fondly on the budding Svengali and thinks, not without some pride, that her assessment of the creature's natural gifts were spot on.

All praise Priceless Protoplasm! The Shoggies have coalesced in a single massive entity to celebrate Shoggothohood, just for the Hell of it. The baby flowers with untidy hairstyles have joined in a merry tribal dance. Just because they feel like it. So…Viva Sevilla y olé! (Why not?)

Met Adelita, a young mother of the Bufo Truncatus, or Truncated Toad species, a variety of alien mutant amphibian that never develops beyond the last tadpole stage. The babies grow a pair of arms early in the life cycle although they remain, for many-many-many moons, very small –but by no means fragile, highly dependent on the mother, fiercely competitive for her attentions and ergo exceedingly quarrelsome. The females of this genus tend to avoid breeding like the plague and have emphatically and unequivocally declared that they intend to stick to that policy until the males of the species start taking on some of the burdens of parenthood. Quite. They also think that motherhood, irritating though it may be, at least they generally produce no more than half a dozen offspring at a time. Whereas the poor old Shub-Niggurath bread only once but got instantly stuck with a thousand Young. The abridged toadettes think that they have it comparatively easy, really. As they do, indeed

It’s Roll up! Roll up! and Gather ’round time once more. Come see the latest in Outlandish Funfairs. Opening its Gates next week, three miles due east of Devil Reef under the very noses of the Pentarchy of the Church of Father Dagon (Innsmouth, Mass.). Try your luck at the wondrous Heisenbergian Wheel of Uncertainty, several notches up from the old mundane Wheel of Fortune, and bet your life on the companion circle of the Fuzzy Pentacles of Fluke. (Health & Safety compliant.) Scrumptious fairground fare catering for all tastes, even vegetarians and vegans. Goody-bags like you’ve never seen before freely dispensed by the Perennially Dazed Glowworms: Sassy Mocking Maracas to aggravate David Cameron! Infuriating alien Espantasuegras -hand crafted by genuine lunatics in Leuret, Aragon, to drive Hilary Clinton ’round the bend! Cornucopias of Bliss and Ice Cream for the Soul to provoke the ire of the ghost of Milton Friedman! And more, much more. Admission is free, naturally, as are the various other events taking place in the fringes of the fairground, but booking is recommended owing to the massive popularity of this kind of shindigs amongst astute and discriminating folks. Gaudeamus organized by Rosie, BoomBoom and Bubbles (Shoggoths) and sponsored by the Mi-Go and the Rosa Luxemburg International Charitable Foundation, following the enormous success of Leo “BigNose” McGurk’s Polydimensional Flying Circus. We think a new trend is on the make. Hope also floats…

To celebrate the New Year (for what it’s likely to be worth...) we have all chipped in to give the Shub-Niggurath a break from constant child care & rearing & watching and we have volunteered to babysit her 1000 Young for a few days. So she has taken herself to the peaceful shores of Lake Hali to meditate on singleness and brood about whether her bum looks increasingly bigger, and does it suit her? And does she give a toss if it doesn't? Happy break girlie!

This is the picture of the muriel I mentioned a while back depicting the Tiny Totem and his mother. Here she can be seen shooing away and saying "Not today, thank you." to the slightly irritating HyperFruityFly, who, as usual, is trying to flog something or other to madamina, in this case some apples it has nicked from the orchard of the Hesperides. Milady doesn't disapprove of the purloining itself -nor do the Hesperides, who are cheerfully aware that they have got more apples than they can dispose of comfortably- but most certainly she objects to paying for what she can get for free any day of the week or, at a pinch, through a mutually acceptable bartering, as the Hesperides are very fond of apple juice laced with some of the stardust that emanates twice a day from madamina's Willendorfian bosoms. The HyperFruityFly, impenitently annoying creature that it is, knows the score full well, still, it tries. Too much time on its hands, I think. It needs a job, or a hobby. Perhaps we can persuade it to enroll on some evening course on, say, art appreciation, or four-dimensional origami. Anything that’ll keep it off the streets and our backs, really. It's also the young bijou Totem's birthday. He is 1,000 years old and he's just been given his first Sacred Crickitt Bat and Garrote Florido (Flowering Club). And is he chuffed or what. He feels so grown up, he does. Educational gossip courtesy of Zippy Stardust of the South Vermont Underground Mi-Go Settlement.

Mr BlackBlob and his young son Squiddy, just back from a transatlantic visit to distant relatives, are telling their friend Mrs MicroDragon –a third cousin dimensionally twice removed of Mrs Worm’s, how pigs will fly before they set foot again upon a land where harmless creatures are being wantonly bumped off, in public and with total impunity, by demented yahoos in blue armed to the teeth, according to a selectively colour-coded yardstick (or rather taserstick).

BigNose McGurk and His Children. A Sob Story with a Happy Ending. For the Silver Bunny and Rose Macaulay. This is the story of Leo(pold) "BigNose" McGurk, a serial single father. Soft of heart and chronically naive, he got himself mixed up, time and again, with a string of heedlessly unscrupulous misses who soon after giving birth to a strapping lassie or lad, left him literally holding the baby. By the time he had collected a dozen of such semi-orphans finances were getting strained and things were getting a trifle out of hand and Leo acknowledged that drastic action was needed to provide for such an extensive family. Unwilling to betray his proclivity for unsuitable females or sell the babies into slavery, he decided to set up a nomadic entertainment troupe. And because all his children are very pretty, indecently healthy, bright as lights and possessed of a keen sense of fun, Leo's Poly-dimensional Flying Circus prospered rapidly and acquired great renown all over the Badlands, from the marshes of !Ting to the underground canals of Crapston Parva. Such was its fame that it soon reached the ever-vigilant ears of the Shoggoths, who punctually despatched Rosie to lend a hand with the after-hours babysitting and the running of the finances. The delightful Imogen, Lapsed Larva once of the Final Void, offered her services as acting part-time* usherette and ice-cream & maracas girl. The travelling jamboree has since been renamed The BigNose & Rosie Itinerant Flying Circus, in recognition of Rosie's invaluable contribution to the concern and to underplay the poli-dimensional element of the spectacle so as to preserve the mystery and the element of surprise. Leo may well be non-female-savvy and a hopeless administrator but he has three priceless talents: a gift for parenthood, an unerring aesthetic flair and a past-master's technique in the matter/energy/dimensions manipulation department. See him here, making some of his niños appear out of nowhere in particular and cascade through the Loopy Singing Hoops. Behold! even Roderick, one of the defecting Lloigor (full-time blasé creatures as they are), is impressed and utterly charmed. The circus has so thrived that the two eldest children are now at the University of Upper Leng doing PhDs in classic quantum mechanics and funky biochemistry respectively. Three of the deserting mothers have made pacific overtures with a view to obtaining access to their forsaken offspring. Rosie is dealing with their appeals. Alien anthropology word to the wise. The females of Leo's species (Probuscicus Levitans) are universally notorious, as much for their beauty, glamour and social graces as for their mindboggling fickleness. You've been warned. *Imogen has not given up her post as Chairlarva of the Spartacist League 2.0

Agravación Delaney, the young Irish witch, congratulates her Zapper Wolves on completion of a highly successful Special Op. The beasties themselves are rather chuffed with the outcome, too. See their smug little smiles? These wolves were, originally, a gift from the Morrigan, who as well as a substantial pack of black dogs, has a nice side line in highly versatile (or Heisenbergian) wolves. Pedantic Footnote. Delaney: Irish surname. From Dubhshláine. Dubh: dark, black + slán: defiance (or Sláine, Gaelic for the river Slaney; possibly more Right but less Romantic). Agravación: An avant-garde Spanish name. Her mum was called Irritación, and her granny Visitación del Dios